Anthropology Final Exam

occurring at a specific point in time, relating to the study of a language at only one point in its history

Diachronic

occurring or changing along with time

Inductive

both premises are true but the conclusion could be false

1. Socrates was Greek. (premise)

2. Most Greeks eat fish. (premise)

3. Socrates ate fish. (conclusion)

Deductive

both premises are true so the conclusion must be true

1. All men are mortal. (premise)

2. Socrates was a man. (premise)

3. Socrates was mortal. (conclusion)

Early ethnographic work as "Salvage Anthropology"

collection or salvage of cultural artifacts and even human remains

Zietgeist

German expression that means “the spirit (Geist) of the time (Ziet)”

Evolutionism "Unilinear Evolution"

different social status is aligned in a single line that moves from most primitive to most civilized (not used today)

"White Man's Burden"

The Caucasian race deemed itself (still applies to this day) superior to the others and thus it was a burden for them to have to educate and "civilize" the rest of the world.

Interventionism

significant activity undertaken by a state to influence something not directly under its control

Social Darwinism and the "Survival of the Fittest"

the strong surpass the weak, the weak die off. The best adapted and most successful social groups survive conflicts, raising the evolutionary level of society. Survival of the Fittest.

Progessionism

is that culture was a product of gradual but cumulative “natural” progressive development to be superior (Scientific view)

Degenerationism

Counterpart perspective which held that humans were created in a high state of morality and civilization. “Primitive” and “savage” peoples were seen as the “outcasts of the human race” who had fallen from a state of “grace”. (Religious view)